


film noir

by almostannette



Series: Crimes of Grindelwald - Oneshots [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts Crimes of Grindelwald, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Ficlet, First Meeting, Gen, circus-setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 18:58:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostannette/pseuds/almostannette
Summary: A brief account of how Nagini first met Credence at the Circus Arcanus.





	film noir

**Author's Note:**

> Just saw Crimes of Grindelwald...  
> Well. I'm salty, the film was so riddled with plotholes, so have a ficlet about how Credence and Nagini even met each other because the film sure as hell didn't bother explaining that.

She lines her eyes with a black kohl pencil to make them stand out more and applies dark violet lipstick. It brings out the sharpness of her features, makes her look more dangerous. Cruel, some would say. Good.

She looks into the mirror one last time. Satisfied with the result, she slips into the dress she’s going to wear for her performance tonight. Well, performance might not be the right word… transformation would be a more accurate term.

Nagini is almost sure she had a different name once, but it’s been too long. She was too young to remember it when she last heard it and there is no one to tell her.

So she is Nagini, the snake-woman, and she is going to transform in front of an audience tonight, like any other night as well. It’s what her mother did, too, they tell her, and because she doesn’t have any way to verify that claim, she has to believe it, for better or worse.

Has to believe that this is the only option for a Maledictus, like herself.

She stopped keeping count of the years she spent at the circus long ago, the days and nights bleed into each other, each one seemingly more uniform like the last.

Magical curiosities - a freakshow, some have called it - get old quickly, when you’re a monster yourself.

Until she meets  _ him. _

They only share a single look, she catches his eye as he looks around the room and she nearly flinches. It feels like someone hit her with a stunning spell.

Credence Barebone radiates magical power, it comes as natural to him as breathing. But like Nagini herself, his magic is more of a curse than a blessing. The magic that should be their birthright is slowly turning against them, wreaking havoc on their bodies.

A monster, they call him. Nagini has heard those words directed at herself often enough.

He wrecked a large part of Manhattan in just a few hours, they say. It took a dozen Aurors to defeat him, and even then he didn’t die.

He’s dangerous, he needs to be kept on a tight leash. Dangerous, she thinks. People label everything and everyone they don’t understand as dangerous.

Credence can’t help what he is, any more than Nagini can control the transformations into her animal form.

She catches his eye across the room and she doesn’t smile at him. It would seem hypocritical, somehow, when she knows exactly what awaits him at the circus. The monster who wrecked Manhattan, who nearly exposed the wizarding community is going to become part of an exhibition, he’s going to be gawked at with an open mouth. Freak, they’ll call him, just as they call her a monster.

But, for just a single second, Credence holds her gaze and looks back at her. There’s fire in his eyes, and Nagini feels a strange kinship bloom between the two of them, sealed without even uttering a single word.

‘You don’t want to stay here,’ she thinks. ‘And neither do I.’

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr: [@almost-annette](https://almost-annette.tumblr.com/)


End file.
